The Undying

In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by     Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky.     They do not stay for question, do not hear     Any old human speech: their tongue and ear     Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not     And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not.     --Until I slept or, musing, on a heap     Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep     Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought     Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought.     For thinking of that unforgettable thing,     The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing     On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright,     Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light;     Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate,     The cruelty most dark, most desolate;     Thinking of the English dead--"How can you dead,"     I muttered, "with your life and young joy shed,     How can you but in these new lands of life     Relume the fiery passion of old strife--     Just anger, mortal hate, the natural scorn     Of men true-born for all things foully born?"     For I had thought that not death's touch could still     In man's clean spirit the hate of good for ill.     But now to see their shapes go lightly by     On those vast fields, clear 'neath the hueless sky,     With not one furious gesture, and (when seen     With but the broad dark hedgerow space between)     No eye's disdain, no thin drawn face of grief,     But pondering calm or lightened look and brief     Smile almost gay;--yet all seen in the air     That driv'n mist makes unreal everywhere--     "So strange," I breathed, "How can you English dead     Forget them for whose life your life was shed?"     It was no voice that answered, yet plain word     Less plain is than the unspoken that I heard,     As I lay there on the dry heap of fern     And watched them pass, mix, disappear and return,     And felt their mute speech into empty senses burn:     "Earth's is the strife. The Heavenly Powers that sent     The gray globe spinning in the firmament,     The Heavenly Powers that soon or late will stay     The spinning, as a child that tires of play,     And globe by spent globe put forgot away     In some vast airless hollow: could they see     Or seeing endure immortal misery     Made out of mortal, and undying hate     Earth's perishing agonies perpetuate?     O spirits unhappy, if from earth men brought     The mind's disease, the sickness of mad thought!     Sooner the Heavenly Powers would let them lie     Eternally unrising 'neath a sky     Arctic and lonely, where death's starven wind     Raged full-delighted:--sooner would those kind     Serenities man's generation cast     Back into nothingness, than heaven should waste     With finite anguish infinitely prolonged     Until the Eternal Spring were stained and wronged.     O, even the Heavenly Powers at such a breath     From mortal shores would fade and fade to death."     --Was it a voice or but a thought I heard,     Mine or another's, in my boughs that stirred     Waking the leafy darkness of the mind?     Was it a voice, or but a new-roused wind     That answered--"O, I know, I know, I know!     The oldest rivers into the full sea flow     And there are lost: so everything is lost,     On midnight waves into oblivion tost.     Yet--the high passion, the pity, the joy and pride,     The righteousness for which these men have died,     The courage, the uncounted sacrifice,     The love and beauty, all that's beyond all price;     That this, the immortal heart of mortal man,     Should be--O tell me what, tell me again, again--     Petals lost on the river of the years     When April sweetness pauses, fades and disappears!     That this high Quarrel should be quenched in death     As some vexed petty plaint unworthy breath;     That the blood and the tears should never rise     Renewed, accusing in grave judgment skies ...     Tell me again--O, rather tell me not     Lest that ill telling never be forgot."     And then I rose from that warm ferny heap     And my thoughts climbed from the abyss of sleep.     No more in human guise did cloud-shapes pass,     Nor sighed with sad intelligence the grass.     I saw the hueless sky break into blue,     And I remembered how that heaven I knew     When, a small child, I gazed at the great height,     And thought of nothing but the blue and white,     Pools of sweet blue swimming in fields of light.     And as tired men from mine and stithy turn     While still the midnight fires unslackened burn     Flushing their road, and so reach home and then     Dream of old childhood's days and dream again;     So I forgot those inward fires and found     Old happiness like dew lying all around.     Under the hedge I stood and far below     Saw on the Worcester Plain the swift clouds flow     Like ships on seas no greener than the Plain     That shone between October sun and rain;     And thinking how time's plenteousness would bring     Back and more bright the young delicious Spring,     Between wet brambles thrust my hand, and tasted     Ripe berries on neglected boughs that wasted.